Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Chinese President Hu Jintao is being treated to a state dinner by our Impostor-in-Chief, Barry Soetoro. I guess Hu should have a nice dinner while ol' Barry grovels for more Chinese investment in our government Ponzi scheme. We ordinary Americans can protest by taking the time to boycott Chinese goods and buy American. Not many things are actually made in this country anymore, but I have come up with a list of ten suggestions for preppers:

Ten ways that preppers can still buy American:

1) A firearm made by Smith & Wesson, Ruger, Kel-Tec, Marlin, Mossberg, or Remington. I'm sure that there are other domestic makers. Just pick one.

2) A box of ammo made by Winchester, Federal, Remington, Speer, or CCI.

3) A knife made by Case or Bear & Sons. Or a set for your kitchen made by Rada. Ontario, Ka-Bar, Buck, and Gerber qualify if the knife was actually made in the USA.

4) A holster made by El Paso Saddlery or Don Hume.

5) A Coleman dual-fuel lantern or stove.

6) Freeze-dried and dehydrated canned fruits, vegetables, meats, and other foods from beprepared.com and honeyvillegrain.com.

7) Food-grade five gallon storage buckets from usplastic.com (the last time I ordered, the buckets and lids were both made in USA).

8) Cast iron dutch ovens and other cookware by Lodge Manufacturing.

9) Extra propane tanks by Worthington and Manchester, and fuel cans by Blitz and Wedco.

10) A bottle of Jack Daniels, Jim Beam, or other American distilled libation.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

In California (surprise!), the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department has arrested the parents of a 23-month-old toddler. According to the Victorville Daily Press, a tipster turned in a video showing the parents "allowing" the toddler to smoke a marijuana pipe. The mother is also seven months pregnant.

One can only hope that, in a nanny-state such as California, that these parents will have to be reprogrammed by social services before having any unsupervised time with their children. Of course, California is so loony-left that the parents may be recruited to teach parenting classes. Arne Duncan will be calling shortly.

In other news, a bomb was found along yesterday's Martin Luther King Day parade route here in River City. The news media is going somewhat bonkers over this, rehashing the last thirty years of history for our neighboring state of Idaho and its alleged racist, antigovernment, Aryan citizens. I will comment on this bullshit tomorrow.

Monday, January 10, 2011

The widely reported snitch cooperative between WalMart and Janet Incompetano's Department of Homeland Security has failed its first major test. "If You See It Twitch, Be a Snitch" failed to detect Arizona assassin Jared Lee Loughner when purchasing ammunition on January 8, 2011.

It is unknown as to whether the Big Sis Industries TeleScreen was malfunctioning in the WalMart store where Loughner purchased the ammunition. Loughner had earlier been turned away when he attempted to purchase ammunition at another WalMart store.

It is clear, however, that Loughner had previous run-ins with the law in Pima County, Arizona and was known to the Sheriff's Office of Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik. It is alleged that Loughner was also known by the Sheriff's Office to being treated by mental health professionals. Despite those run-ins, which are alleged to include threats against persons at a local college and drug paraphernalia charges, Loughlin was cleared to purchase a Glock pistol in Pima County after a background check. If that check was performed by the Pima County Sheriff's Office, Sheriff Dupnik has some explaining to do. Sources: Fox News and James Kelley.

What to take out of all this? Local law enforcement had the tools and the information to prevent Loughner from purchasing the gun likely used by him in the massacre, but did not due to apparent incompetence and/or corruption. Heavy-handed Orwellian federal "snitch" programs fail to produce the security that is promised in return for that surrender of liberty.

"When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government. The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous," he said. "And unfortunately, Arizona, I think, has become the capital. We have become the mecca for prejudice and bigotry."

The above-quote was made by Sheriff Dupnik following the shooting of Representative Gabrielle Giffords, D-Arizona and other innocents by Jared Lee Loughner on January 8, 2011. It appeared in the Newsmax story, here.

How retarded. At a time that the citizens of Pima County need Dupnik to dispassionately perform his duties as the chief elected law enforcement officer, he engages in the type of hate-based political discourse that he decries. Persons with political views that don't match Dupnik's own leftist ideology have now been libelled as bigots. According to Dupnik, their political speech is considered prejudice and bigotry, and renders them responsible for the violence perpetrated by extremists. The use of political office by Sheriff Dupnik to espouse such views reveals him to be the sort of intolerant petty despot who is a threat to liberty and unfit for office.

Was Sheriff Dupnik aware that the shooter, Jared Lee Loughner (always three names for an assassin) was a loony lefty whose favorite books included Mein Kampf and The Communist Manifesto and that Mr. Loughner had rants about as intelligible as Keith Olbermann's? That Mr. Loughner's political views appear to be those associated with Sheriff Dupnik's own political party?

It appears that Sheriff Dupnik's office may have been aware that Mr. Loughner was unstable and prone to violence. Karl Denninger reports on this in his excellent post on the shooting of Representative Giffords and the reaction of the left: The Shameful Left and Revisionism. The paragraph on Sheriff Dupnik is a ways down in the post, so I will reproduce the relevant paragraph here:

"See, there are also, unfortunately, reports in the media that the suspect had expressed homicidal ideation - that is, a desire (or threat) to murder. That's in the press at this point, and it's a problem. If this was known to the local law enforcement community, why wasn't he evaluated with regard to his mental stability? That may explain why the Pima County Sheriff was talking trash yesterday - he knows he's got himself a bit of 'splaining to do once people figure out that they had this guy in custody at least once, knew he was potentially unstable and that he was a threat to others. If they had done their job perhaps this wouldn't have happened - you see, it is already illegal for someone who is mentally ill to purchase and/or own a firearm, which begs the question: did every opportunity exist to interdict this individual at some point in the last couple of years, including direct contact with law enforcement who were aware of homicidal threats and his behavior at his college, and yet either the procedures were not in place to refer him for evaluation or they were not followed?"

Representative Giffords was the victim, along with other innocents, of a crazed criminal gunman. I hope that Representative Giffords and the other wounded innocents have a speedy and full recovery. The survivors of those who were murdered by Mr. Loughner have my sympathy. This was a tragedy.

The citizens are the victims of outrageous statements made by the media and elected officials including Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik. These statements, following this false-flag event, will undoubtedly be used by tyrannical fascist politicians to further limit the Constitutional rights of Americans to freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and the right to keep and bear arms. Mark my words.

False-flag event. I have chosen those words carefully. When a politician from the left exploits the murderous actions of a leftist extremist for the purpose of demonizing persons who had no connection to the murderous actions of the leftist extremist, I consider that to be a false-flag event.

The only reason to demonize persons who had no connection to the murderous event is to limit their freedoms. It isn't hard to figure out. Sheriff Dupnik has already told you that some political speech should be limited because it is, in his left-wing opinion, hateful, prejudiced, bigoted, and responsible for the violence of left-wing nutjob Mr. Loughner. That is but one example of freedoms to be limited.

Kudos to my own Representative, Cathy McMorris-Rodgers, who reacted as reported by Fox News:

"Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., who appeared with Clyburn, said she is not aware that alleged shooter Jared Lee Loughner is tied to a political movement or engaged in a politically motivated act.

"You know, his favorite books are 'the Communist Manifesto' and 'Mein Kampf.' I think it's important that we recognize that this is an individual that had -- that has mental challenges, and we need to act appropriately in dealing with him and making sure that justice prevails here," she said."

A criminal act was committed by a criminal in Arizona yesterday. Sheriff Dupnik turned a criminal act into a political action for the purpose of libelling a particular brand of political speech, turning the actions of a criminal into a false-flag event that will likely affect the freedoms of a generation of American citizens. Again, how retarded.

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

A fake standoff in Washington D.C. is coming soon. No, not the Guardians of Liberty assembling on January 21, 2011. I’m talking about the much ballyhooed Republican attempt to repeal Obamacare. Who are they trying to fool? Oh, it’s us. Sorry.

The Republicans have no hope of repealing Obamacare in this session of Congress. I know that the Republicans are following through on their promise to take up the repeal of Obamacare, but the announcement of a vote on January 12, 2011 is nothing more than showmanship without substance.

First, in the House of Representatives the Republicans would have to get a majority in favor of repeal. The Republicans may now have a majority in the house, but that majority is laden with a number of “squishies” and RINO’s. I actually think that Boehner is likely to get a majority vote in the House.

Second, a repeal bill would have to pass in the Senate. Not likely. Republicans would have to be able to bring the bill to the floor for a vote, requiring 60 votes to be lined up. Harry Reid might let that happen without 60 votes lined up, just to be able to claim that he acted fairly. And why not? Republicans likely do not have the 51 votes to get a repeal bill passed. Dingy Harry will use every bribe and threat he has to keep his Democrats in line, and might even be able to lure a couple of squishies his way, like Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe. Maybe Dingy Harry will channel the purgatory-bound spirit of Ted Kennedy to possess Scott Brown. Whatever. Republicans do not have the number in the Senate.

Third, does anyone believe that Obama would sign the repeal of his signature accomplishment? Or that Republicans, even if they were able to pass a repeal of Obamacare, could do so with veto-proof majorities? Again, not likely and not likely.

Anyone who believes Republicans will accomplish a repeal of Obamacare in this session of Congress are drinking the Republican kool-aid and are falling again for the false left-right paradigm that keeps the two parties in power. They will want us to believe that they tried and failed, but went down swinging. If we keep voting for them in the future they will have a better chance at keeping their promises. Yeah, right.

A practical answer to Obamacare, that is well-known to Republicans, can be found in the former Hyde Amendment. Henry Hyde, for those who don’t know, was a Republican Congressman from Illinois who is probably most famous for adding an amendment to spending bills that prohibited the use of federal funds for abortions. That type of amendment to spending bills has the power to cripple an agency or program where repeal or elimination would be impossible. Since all funding bills must originate in the House of Representatives, the Republicans have control of funding for Obamacare and can force the Senate and Obama to accept particular funding provisions or have no funding at all.

How can this be accomplished with Obamacare? Target its provisions for a lack of funding. Specifically.

A few examples:

The Internal Revenue Service has been charged with compliance on purchase of health insurance. The House of Representatives can refuse to fund the IRS compliance efforts or can specify that the IRS is prohibited from using any of its funding for compliance. Further, the House funding bill can specify that if the provision is violated, the IRS would lose all funding.

The IRS is also charged with enforcing the odious “1099 provision” that would require filing 1099 miscellaneous income forms for all transactions over $600.00. This provision is bad news for small businesses and is another example of unneeded and unwanted government intrusion. The House could specify in its funding for the IRS that the 1099 requirement cannot be enforced using government funds, just like the health insurance provision.

There are many other provisions of Obamacare that are to be administered by the Department of Health and Human Services. The House should take aim at each specific provision and either defund or enact a prohibition on use of funds for those provisions, with the threat of a total loss of funding should the agency use funds for prohibited activities.

Death of Obamacare by a thousand spending cuts and prohibitions is possible where repeal is not. It might also be wildly popular with the voters if the Republicans make a point of targeting the most odious parts. If the Republicans were to turn the chipping away at Obamacare into a populist cause, Obama and the Democrats might just have to accept each cut to keep the government running and to maintain some electibility going into 2012.

Let’s see if any of the Republican leadership is interested in picking up this idea. After all, it is nothing new, just larger in scale than previous efforts such as the Hyde Amendment.

We will soon get to see whether the effort to repeal Obamacare is a one-act play or the opening salvo in a war against the ever-increasing encroachment of an extraconstitutional government. I’m betting on a one-act play, but I am a pessimist by nature.

Monday, January 3, 2011

Idiocy reigns supreme in Amerika. Sixty-one percent of Amerikans favor taxing the rich in order to balance the federal budget, according to a 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair poll conducted from November 29 to December 2, 2010. Only four percent favored cutting Medicare and three percent favored cutting Social Security. Story at Newsmax's MoneyNews.

I would theorize that the 1,067 adults polled were randomly selected from various nursing homes in Connecticut, Delaware, and Massachusetts, but I would consider the source to be even more suspect. Any poll commissioned by CBS, the home of "Rathergate", is deserving of a truckload of skepticism. I have noticed that CBS polls of the Oba-One's approval are the most wildly optimistic of all the polls reported at RealClearPolitics.com. I think that the 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair poll is nothing more than a fraud designed to give lily-livered-liberals a shot of courage and reason to believe that the public is in favor of further job-killing progressive taxation.

Which reminds me of an old, humorous explanation of the modern tax system and the class jealousy and warfare that the system has abetted since the social planners unveiled it generations ago. I had forgotten about it until a friend emailed it to me today. It goes like this:

THE TAX LAWS EXPLAINED IN BEER DRINKING TERMS

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100...

If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this...

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7..
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that's what they decided to do as fair.

The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve ball. "Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20". Drinks for the ten men would now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes. So the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men ? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his fair share?

They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer.

So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by a higher percentage the poorer he was, to follow the principle of the tax system they had been using, and he proceeded to work out the amounts he suggested that each should now pay.

And so the fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% saving).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% saving).
The seventh now paid $5 instead of $7 (28% saving).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% saving).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% saving).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% saving).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But, once outside the bar, the men began to compare their savings.

"I only got a dollar out of the $20 saving," declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man,"but he got $10!"

"Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar too. It's unfair that he got ten times more benefit than me!"

"That's true!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back, when I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!"

"Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison, "we didn't get anything at all. This new tax system exploits the poor!"

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had their beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and government ministers, is how our new tax system works. The people who already pay the highest taxes will naturally get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas, where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

I think these resolutions should keep me fairly busy through 2011. The quitting smoking will probably be the most difficult. I have quit smoking a number of times in the past fifteen years, only to start again when I get stressed. This time, my determination is different than before. I am more concerned about my health, the money spent on tobacco, and about going into an uncertain future with a tobacco addiction.

The remaining resolutions are an extension of my projects from 2010. I might actually get them done this year.